The NFL end-of-season chopping block has become so predictable that it has a name, Black Monday, a day that came and went this week with the standard bloodshed. Five head coaches were fired, two fewer than on the same day last year.

We mention this in a baseball column because of how different the sports seem to be when evaluating the highest-ranking decision makers. While football is a coach’s game, baseball is more about the general manager, and yet GMs seem to enjoy far more security — and those jobs seem to be getting more secure every year.

Of course, at the same time, we’re approaching a season in which Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers is on the self-proclaimed “hot seat,” meaning the front office could be facing its second major turnover in a half decade.

But baseball hasn’t had a general manager fired since 2011 — or it has had only one if you count the changes in Miami, where Larry Beinfest was fired as president of baseball operations.

Of the remaining 20, only nine teams have undergone full regime changes. The other 11 have been moves from within, many of which included fairly subtle transitions, like Chris Antonetti succeeding Mark Shapiro in Cleveland or Ben Cherington taking over for Theo Epstein in Boston.

That’s seven years, or roughly an eternity in sports, in which less than one-third of teams have undergone major overhauls in baseball operations.

It makes sense that GMs get a lot of rope. It can take longer to implement change in baseball, a sport in which prospects need years to develop. But as to why the job seems to be growing more secure, there are several possible reasons.

Start with increased parity. In the past 10 years, 26 of baseball’s 30 teams have reached the postseason. And with the addition of a second wild card, even more teams can at least resemble contenders.

More focus on farm systems could also be another factor. If the big-league team is struggling, GMs can at least point to what’s coming as reason for optimism, even if there’s no way to know if those prospects will actually pan out.

Another factor is probably tied to the backgrounds of modern GMs, many of whom are business savvy and/or Ivy League trained. Being able to speak the same language as their owners, to rationalize their decision-making based on more quantifiable factors rather than on scouting hunches or gut instincts, can only help when things don’t work out as planned.

As GMs have become more front and center in the post-“Moneyball” years, managers’ stars have dimmed somewhat. And certainly, the GMs are far more secure than the managers they hire; 12 teams have featured new managers since the end of the 2012 season.

Of course, this could just be a long period of calm before a storm. Towers isn’t the only GM who will enter this season feeling pressure. The same could be said for O’Dowd, Seattle’s Jack Zduriencik, Philadelphia’s Ruben Amaro Jr. and the Angels’ Jerry Dipoto. Perhaps baseball’s version of Black Monday is just around the corner, after all.

Reach Piecoro at 602-444-8680 or nick.piecoro@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickpiecoro.

Posting a comment to our website allows you to join in on the conversation. Share your story and unique perspective with members of the azcentral.com community.

Comments posted via facebook:

► Join the Discussion

Join the conversation! To comment on azcentral.com, you must be logged into an active personal account on Facebook. You are responsible for your comments and abuse of this privilege will not be tolerated. We reserve the right, without warning or notification, to remove comments and block users judged to violate our Terms of Service and Rules of Engagement. Facebook comments FAQ

Join thousands of azcentral.com fans on Facebook and get the day's most popular and talked-about Valley news, sports, entertainment and more - right in your newsfeed. You'll see what others are saying about the hot topics of the day.